The Way of St. James #6: Day 3

I am a morning person. Breakfast at 6 AM is no bother for me. So breakfast in the auberge in Motz seemed late at eight o’clock. But it was a good breakfast, and I once again stocked up on carbohydrates to face the day ahead. And then I was on the trail shortly before nine.

Because Motz is not on the main trail, I followed the road to the village of Mathy to rejoin the Chemin de Saint Jacques. That bit was downhill all the way. Easy! From Mathy, the path moves close to the river Rhone, and follows the left bank for quite a while. Even at this distance from the sea, the Rhone is a mighty river, even deceptively so. There are times when what looks like the opposite bank is really an island in the river.

  

I passed two bridges: the Pont de Loi road bridge first and the railway bridge a little further downstream. It is only from the scale of these bridges that it is possible to understand the scale of the river. And so I came to the village of Chanaz. Chanaz is a touristy place, with boats for hire, restaurants on the water, short cruises on the river, and so on. It met my need for some food and drink, it being lunchtime at this stage, but it was not a place to stay, and after a small lunch I was on my way again.

  

  

It is eighteen kilometers from Chanaz to Yenne, which was my destination for the day. Yenne is pronounced “Yen”, as in the Japanese currency, but with the double N slightly drawn out. I have to say that those eighteen kilometers were the most uninteresting of the entire walk so far. There were forests, agricultural land (almost entirely cornfields or vineyards, and river bank, but no interesting villages or towns, And in the entire eighteen kilometers, I met just two other walkers. OK, so it’s Monday, and I can’t expect to meet as many people as I would at the weekend, but even so. Probably the most interesting object in that eighteen kilometers was the Orgeval Chapel, a small structure built by local people in 1845 to honour the Virgin Mary. It was renovated in 2005, and is clearly visited regularly. But apart from that, this was not an interesting part of the overall walk

  

  

Coming into Yenne, I met another walker, who was looking for a place to stay. I had booked into what used to be a monastery, and told her she could try there if she wished. And so we both ended up in the Clos des Capuchins. Again, this is low budget accommodation, with bed breakfast and evening meal all in for €45. I have just had dinner and it was good.

Tomorrow I am faced with a choice. There are two variants to the route from here, and I have decided to take the one that gives the best prospect of towns and villages. The other seems to be mostly forest. I have seen plenty of forest in the last few days.

And the step count? A little over 46,000.